What 7 Colorado lawmakers did for business

Before the November election, the Denver Business Journal profiled seven metro-area races that would be key to determining the makeup of the 2013 Legislature. (Read those profiles online at bizj.us/sa96x.) Here is a look at what those seven office-seekers said they’d do on business issues during their campaigns, and what they actually did.

Sen. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood

Said: Wanted to put more money into K-12 and higher education and target specific industries for tax relief.

Did: Kerr supported a school-finance reform plan that will seek a $1 billion tax hike on the statewide ballot this year, and he was a leading opponents of a failed measure to let community colleges offer some bachelor’s degrees.

He cosponsored a bill that gives car dealers more leverage when negotiating with auto manufacturers in their franchise agreements, which passed the Legislature. He also cosponsored a successful measure enforcing a rule that state contractors to hire at least 80 percent of workers from Colorado — a bill that contractors opposed initially before many went neutral on it due to changes that reduced reporting burdens.

Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Arvada

Said: Wanted to increase education funding and to revive her business-opposed bill to grant bidding preferences to state contractors who hire locally.

Did: Hudak sponsored a school funding bill that added $40 million to K-12 education. She did not bring back her bidding-preference bill.

As a member of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, she played a large part in killing measures to allow companies to submit statements on the fiscal impact of proposed bills on them and to ban the state from requiring companies to submit bids on nonreturnable iPads.

Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood

Did: Pettersen cosponsored just one bill affecting business — a measure to require the Colorado Secretary of State’s office to ask business-license registrants if they are female- or minority-owned. Her most noteworthy bill designated shelter and rescue dogs and cats as the official state pets.

Rep. Tracy Kraft-Tharp, D-Arvada

Said: Wanted concerned parties to come forward with ideas on small business and education that she could advance.

Did: Business lobbyists lauded Kraft-Tharp as one of the most pro-business Democrats in this year’s freshman class. She cosponsored successful bills to expand a job-creation tax credit to aircraft maintenance companies and to create an exporting-aid program for growing companies, and she was key in killing a bill that would have criminalized wage theft.

However, Kraft-Tharp also was key in killing a measure to let businesses submit fiscal impact statements on proposed bills.

Rep. Daniel Kagan, D-Cherry Hills Village

Said: Wanted to increase funding for education and transportation and eliminate enterprise-zone tax breaks for oil/gas and cable companies.

Did: Kagan sponsored several bills backed by the South Metro Chamber, including a successful measure that takes the first step in developing a uniform statewide sales-tax base and a failed effort to increase the business personal property tax exemption to $25,000.

However, as House Judiciary Committee chairman, he also helped advance a bill expanding damages in discrimination lawsuits against the state’s smallest companies that business groups called the worst of the session.

Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton

Said: Wanted to work on economic-development measures and “comprehensive fiscal reform.”

Did: Newell was less active on business issues than in 2012. She cosponsored the bill to increase business personal property tax exemptions and tried to add money for film incentives in this year’s budget, but both failed.

She was instrumental in killing a bill to remake the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission but supported a bill to increase groundwater testing in the oil-rich Greater Wattenberg Area. She also voted for a bill to send to voters a constitutional amendment to set up a state-run single-payer health care system.

Rep. Max Tyler, D-Lakewood

Said: Wanted to help small businesses and increase transportation funding.

Did: Gov. John Hickenlooper enacted his proposal to increase state transportation spending by $300 million over five years before the session began. And he passed his bill to increase funding for the Small Business Development Centers program by $600,000.

But Tyler again fought business groups on several issues, including an enterprise-zone reform bill that lost business support and the bill to increase discrimination lawsuit damages.